Description of the Prior Art
Conductive circuits have mostly been made by a print-and-etch technique, a multi-step time-consuming process, which generates significant amounts of environmentally undesirable waste. The most widely used alternative available at this time, but still limited in its application, is the technique of producing a circuit pattern on a desired substrate by screen printing an organic resin-containing conductive ink on said substrate and then curing and/or firing said ink. Most of these inks are solvent based and heat cured, again resulting in production of environmentally undesirable waste while also consuming significant amounts of energy. There are also screen printable solventless and radiation-curable systems but these show considerable viscosity limitations. In addition, all the above inks, beside being generally quite slow in curing tend also to be non-solderable and are generally not suitable for high temperature applications.